DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62133#0257
KAULBACHES “ MAD-HOUSE.
241
sane as well as the insane. Ambition, avarice, fanati-
cism, cruelty, love, over-excitement of sense and of
intellect, each presents its wretched victim! With the
exception of three out of the fifteen mad people which
the design contains, all are absorbed in then’ own re-
flections or occupations, heedless of those around them :
these three are two young women, who contend with each
other about a man, and an old crone who watches the
contest. The man, a wretched, sordid being, with a
thin mean face, wrinkled-up eye, and mouth drawn down,
with an indescribable look of cruel hardness and meanness
combined,—with a lottery ticket pinned upon his battered
hat, with earrings in his ears, and his hands doggedly
thrust within his apron, looks out unconcernedly, heedless
of the women, whose arms are locked around his bull-
neck ; his eyes are filled with avaricious madness. The
ribald shriek rings in 011(4,8 ears of the woman who, with a
tiger-look in her coarse face, and with her hair closely
shaven, seeks with maniac violence to push back her rival,
who with closely-locked hands clings round the man.
Ah ! those are arms which should have clung around a
kind and noble being,-—that sweet feminine face should
have gleamed with the sunshine of domestic joy : in that
beautiful, sad countenance, veiled now with the mist of
madness, and in the close, close clasp of those hands, one
reads the history of a miserable, cruel marriage ; it is a face
that makes the heart sick to dwell upon. The old crone,
wearing her quaint peasant costume, whilst her bony
fingers knit busily, looks round upon this group; her old
eyes also have the mist of madness in them, and from her
toothless jaws proceed, you feel, coarse, horrible mumblings.
All the other maniacs are self-absorbed. Here in the
centre sits, with ungartered stockings falling from his legs,
and resting his fierce face upon his fists, one who believes
vol. 1. R
241
sane as well as the insane. Ambition, avarice, fanati-
cism, cruelty, love, over-excitement of sense and of
intellect, each presents its wretched victim! With the
exception of three out of the fifteen mad people which
the design contains, all are absorbed in then’ own re-
flections or occupations, heedless of those around them :
these three are two young women, who contend with each
other about a man, and an old crone who watches the
contest. The man, a wretched, sordid being, with a
thin mean face, wrinkled-up eye, and mouth drawn down,
with an indescribable look of cruel hardness and meanness
combined,—with a lottery ticket pinned upon his battered
hat, with earrings in his ears, and his hands doggedly
thrust within his apron, looks out unconcernedly, heedless
of the women, whose arms are locked around his bull-
neck ; his eyes are filled with avaricious madness. The
ribald shriek rings in 011(4,8 ears of the woman who, with a
tiger-look in her coarse face, and with her hair closely
shaven, seeks with maniac violence to push back her rival,
who with closely-locked hands clings round the man.
Ah ! those are arms which should have clung around a
kind and noble being,-—that sweet feminine face should
have gleamed with the sunshine of domestic joy : in that
beautiful, sad countenance, veiled now with the mist of
madness, and in the close, close clasp of those hands, one
reads the history of a miserable, cruel marriage ; it is a face
that makes the heart sick to dwell upon. The old crone,
wearing her quaint peasant costume, whilst her bony
fingers knit busily, looks round upon this group; her old
eyes also have the mist of madness in them, and from her
toothless jaws proceed, you feel, coarse, horrible mumblings.
All the other maniacs are self-absorbed. Here in the
centre sits, with ungartered stockings falling from his legs,
and resting his fierce face upon his fists, one who believes
vol. 1. R